Archive for the ‘youth with autism’ Category

What are supports for teaching social skills activities to children with autism ?

There are several methods through which we learn:

Through seeing (visually)

Hearing (auditory),

Touching or manipulating an object (kinesthetically or ‘hands-on’ learning).

An example of these would be, looking at a picture book or reading a textbook, this would be visual learning. Listening to a c.d., or going to a lecture this would be learning through hearing…and pressing buttons to determine how to operate a DVD involves learning kinesthetically, through touch and feel.

Mostly we learn through two or more of these learning skills. How we learn will determine how ell we do at school.

Most mainstream school adopt all of these learning methods, we visually learn through reading books and texts, we learn through listening to out teachers and we practice tasks to learn.

With children on the autism spectrum they will nearly always be visual learners. Some children on the autism spectrum will also be kinesthetic learners and may well benefit form their teacher or helper actually guiding their hand while they undertake tasks.

Therefore, it is important that a teacher assess each ASD child in the class to determine which kind of learning skill they prefer. The teacher can then adapt the teaching style to suit the ASD child’s need’s and build on their strengths.

However one very important thing to remember when assessing an ASD child is their need for repetition and sameness. Keeping this in mind when setting lessons will be of benefit.

A visual timetable should always be in place for the ASD student to refer too.

The supports for teaching social skills activities to children with autism are readily available nowadays and can be easy to use, supports such as autism social stories are used with tremendous effect.

The autism social skills story will help keep the ASD child on task, and work as an excellent tool in helping teachers explain the why, what, where, when and how to the ASD student.

Using autism social skills stories as supports for teaching social skills activities to children with autism will benefit the ASD student, they can be read, auditory, they have appropriate pictures and images plus some text, visual and they can be handles kinesthetic, or used as a visual aid with attachable pictures etc…

However you decide to use it an autism social skills story will prove to be a valuable asset to the supports for teaching social skills activities to children with autism that are already in place.

To obtain school related autism social skills stories that can be downloaded quickly and effortlessly and are all in printable format please visit:

Generally for the majority of us adolescence is a stressful and confusing time in our lives. This is also true for adolescents with autism.

The adolescent youth will need direct help dealing with puberty and the transition to adulthood. Parents of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder report while some behaviors improve during the teenage age years, some get worse.

Many parents of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder report that they have noticed an increase in autistic aggressive behaviors. It has been suggested by experts in adolescent autism that this may be due to an increase in hormonal levels and the autistic aggressive behaviors are used as a way to relieve much of the confusion and stress the youth with autism feels.

During the teenage years typically developing young people will generally become more socially active. During this period of our lives we become more aware of our own sexuality, our popularity and the way we look and “fit in” with our peer group.

However for the adolescent youth these years can lead to social awkwardness, isolation, confusion and anxieties even bullying in some cases. A behavior that during their childhood years was accepted by their peers may now be ridiculed leaving the youth with autism confused.

For the parents of an Adolescent on the autism spectrum this time can be extremely stressful, with feelings of desperation and helplessness. Many parents of adolescents with autism spectrum report that the use visual supports for autism like autism social stories can make a huge improvement.

Autism social stories are visual supports for autism that are used to teach social, communication, interaction, imagination and positive behaviors to those individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

During this confusing time of life parents of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder find autism social stories can play a big part in the youths life helping them learn socially acceptable behaviors and skills which can help the teen “fit in” socially and become more comfortable with their own changing body and life style.

Autism social stories can help with autistic aggressive behaviors by visually showing and explaining in a step by step plan the what, why, where and when of the situation showing the youth with autism spectrum disorder how to cope, what is happening, and what they should expect from others as well as what others are going to expect from them.

Giving the youth with autism spectrum disorder a clear concise description with positive suggestion and social cues helping them cope with any skill or behavior they are struggling to master. Like for example puberty.